Monday, February 18, 2008

Poetry Reading Habits!

Reading rob's post at surroundings about his poetry reading habits made me think about my own. Similar to rob, I also have my poetry books seperated into three piles:the first pile is my essential book reading that I read to death on a regular basis and are what I call my 'muse' books. They are and always will hold prime place for me -

My second pile of books are a mixture between current reading that I know I want to, and will go back to on a regular basis and some dearly loved older books that I pick up fairly regularly to read the odd poem from -

So this list is still fairly exclusive but open to expansion as I widen my (particularly current) poetry reading horizons.The third pile make up the highest and lower shelves of my poetry bookcase and I generally have to take a specific notion to drag out any of the books. I should say there is an inbetween pile that haven't been relegated to the heights or depths of my bookcase and neither have I mentioned them in the above lists though they may at times sneak in and out of pile number two, however the ones listed above as pile number two I don't think will ever sneak out of it!

Another pile of books I keep alongside my main poetry books are a few prose books about poetry and poets that are immensely important to me, these are -

Strong Words, Modern Poets on Modern Poetry ed. W.N. Herbert and Matthew HollisThe Government of the Tongue, Selected prose by Seamus heaneyThe Epic Poise, A Celebration of Ted Hughes ed. Nick GammageWinter Pollen, Occasional Prose by Ted HughesPoetry in the Making by Ted HughesTed Hughes, The Life of a Poet by Elaine FeinsteinLetters Home and Journals of Sylvia Plath

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